Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

On Jun 14, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Gary McGraw wrote: I am in complete agreement with your thinking, which is why one of the touchpoints (and chapter 9 of "Software Security" is about operations. Ken knows more about this than any of us, but he's on a plane now...right Ken? Wow, I'd stop far sh

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

www.cigital.com/silverbullet blog www.cigital.com/justiceleague book www.swsec.com -Original Message- From: James Stibbards [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 9:42 AM To: Gary McGraw Cc: SC-L@securecoding.org Subject: RE: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann Hi Gary (good to see you

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gary McGraw Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 8:59 PM To: 'Crispin Cowan' Cc: 'SC-L@securecoding.org'; 'Blue Boar' Subject: Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann I am reminded of a (bottle of wine induced) argument I once had with dan geer o

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

, June 11, 2007 05:50 PM Eastern Standard Time To: Gary McGraw Cc: Blue Boar; SC-L@securecoding.org Subject:Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann Gary McGraw wrote: > Though I don't quite understand computer science theory in the same way that > Crispin does, I do think

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

Crispin Cowan wrote: > Do you suppose it is because of the different techniques researchers use > to detect vulnerabilities in source code vs. binary-only code? Or is > that a bad assumption because the hax0rs have Microsoft's source code > anyway? :-) I'm in the process of hiring an outside firm

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

I agree with Ryan, at the top skill levels anyway. Binary reverse engineering seems to have evolved to the point where I refer to binary as "source-equivalent," and I was told by some well-known applied researcher that some vulns are easier to find in binary than source. But the bulk of public d

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

Steven M. Christey wrote: > On Mon, 11 Jun 2007, Crispin Cowan wrote: > >> Kind of. I'm saying that "specification" and "implementation" are >> relative to each other: at one level, a spec can say "put an iterative >> loop here" and implementation of a bunch of x86 instructions. >> > I agre

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

On Mon, 11 Jun 2007, Crispin Cowan wrote: > Gary McGraw wrote: > > Though I don't quite understand computer science theory in the same way > > that Crispin does, I do think it is worth pointing out that there are two > > major kinds of security defects in software: bugs at the implementation >

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

Gary McGraw wrote: > Though I don't quite understand computer science theory in the same way that > Crispin does, I do think it is worth pointing out that there are two major > kinds of security defects in software: bugs at the implementation level, and > flaws at the design/spec level. I think

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

der Mouse wrote: >> Like it or not, the Web doesn't work right without Javascript now. > > Depends on what you mean by "the Web" and "work right". Fortunately, > for at least some people's values of those, this is not true. Obviously, I'm oversimplifying. I claim that there are enough web sites

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

der Mouse wrote: >> > What Turing actually tells us is that it is possible to construct > programs that may be correct but whose correctness is not decidable. > This is a far cry from saying that it is not possible to build > well-structured programs whose correctness _is_ decidable. True as f

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

At 9:00 AM -0400 6/11/07, Gary McGraw wrote: > If we assumed perfection at the implementation level (through better > languages, say), then we would end up solving roughly 50% of the > software security problem. > > Clearly we need to make some progress at the architecture/design level > to attai

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

> What Turing actually tells us is that it is possible to construct > programs that may be correct but whose correctness is not decidable. > This is a far cry from saying that it is not possible to build > well-structured programs whose correctness _is_ decidable. True as far as it goes - but don'

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

m podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet blog www.cigital.com/justiceleague book www.swsec.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Crispin Cowan Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 2:33 AM To: Blue Boar Cc: SC-L@securecoding.org Subject: Re: [SC-L] Harvard v

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

Crispin Cowen wrote: >> IMHO, all this hand wringing is for naught. To get systems that never fail requires total correctness. Turing tells us that total correctness is not decidable, so you simply never will get it completely, you will only get approximations at best. << What Turing actually tel

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

IMHO, all this hand wringing is for naught. To get systems that never fail requires total correctness. Turing tells us that total correctness is not decidable, so you simply never will get it completely, you will only get approximations at best. Having humans write specifications and leaving progr

Re: [SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

> Like it or not, the Web doesn't work right without Javascript now. Depends on what you mean by "the Web" and "work right". Fortunately, for at least some people's values of those, this is not true. /~\ The ASCII der Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML

[SC-L] Harvard vs. von Neumann

ljknews wrote: > It amazes me that someone in a discussion of software security would point > to a page that requires Javascript to be viewed. I'm on a couple of mailing list with Dr. Solly, an early antivirus researcher. he likes to talk about this idea of "Grannyx" an (hypothetical) operating sy